The 7th Global Conference on Transparency Research will be held from 19-21 May at the Copenhagen Business School. This edition of the conference is entitled “Rethinking Transparency: Challenging Ideals and Embracing Paradoxes”.
A call for papers and panel proposals is now online and can be accessed here. The conference organisers have decided to extend the deadline until 13 September 2020.
The -for some transparency scholars provocative- theme of the conference reflects a growing sociological literature in the field of organisational studies which highlights the ambiguity and malleability of the transparency concept. This scholarship focusses on aspects such as the “materiality” of transparency (how it is materially conceived), its recurrent use in political rhetoric, and its centrality as a symbolic signifier in several trends of administrative and political reform (such as NPM, governance, and new models of democratisation), emphasising the performative character of transparency policies. With this is meant that such policies are seen as dynamic, in that they create new realities, leading those affected by them to change their behaviour.
The first global transparency conference was held in Newark in 2011. Subsequent editions were organised roughly every 1-2 years, with conferences in Utrecht (2012), Paris (2014), Lugano (2015), Limerick (2017), and Rio de Janeiro (2019). -MH